Palace
by MurmursInTheSea
Summary: Sherlock visits his mind palace, remembering his secrets. Disclaimer: characters belong to ACD and the BBC.
1. Death

It was the room of the Dead and the Departed, under the subsection Those Who Still Matter But Matter Less Due To the Issues Previously Discussed, and the graveyard was only half full. There were holes dug years ago in the ground, deep yawning crevices awaiting occupants, representing the deaths that were inevitable. There was a fresh cascade of flowers on the brown coffin, and an array of white ribbons crowned the picture standing at the head of the grave. The sun shone brightly - it always shone brightly here - but the priest stood sombre in his black clothing, bending his head to whisper the last rites. His words were never quite captured from the moment. Other things were more important.

Henry Thames had vomited the contents of his stomach onto his shiny shoes. They were second-hand, the previous owner walking with a limp that favoured his crippled leg. Mycroft's lips were thin and his face was unusually pale. He never missed school, but he had missed school for this event. His hand remained clenched on the little pamphlet celebrating Her life, Her words, Her wonderful, wonderful words. They did not reach out towards me. The distance was minute, and at the same time, it was infinite.

'Human sentiment is irrelevant,' Mycroft snarled. There was spittle on his lower lip, and a yellow stain on his teeth. He had taken to smoking once She had gotten ill. He thought I did not know, but I did. 'It is hardly necessary.'

We left early. We did not see Her body lowered into the chasm. We did not hear Her mother weeping hysterically, or see Her father look up to heavens as though it would return their beloved daughter to them, and Her red curls would burst again from Her thin, bald scalp, and Her lips would be pink and Her smile broad and Her eyes fire and not ash.

Ashes to Ashes.

Dust to Dust.

.

There was a trapdoor there, under the words Mycroft had snarled.

It swung open quickly.

'I don't have friends,' I growled, throwing barbed wire into John's face. His skin ripped, tore, and bled. A bullet hole appeared in his forehead, and the blood trickled down.

_Rifle. Long-distance. Trained assassin, untraceable bullet._

'If you don't have friends,' John smiled thinly, 'then why would I die for you?'

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

_._

How do you rectify bad moments? There was a trapdoor here too, leading to the Classroom, with all the hand-scribbled posters emblazoned on the pastel green walls, and the smiling poster of some irrelevant cartoon over Her desk.

She held my hands in hers. Human contact was essential for emotional conversations, or so She thought. It was apparent in the way She approached everyone - children or parents. It always unnerved Mycroft, but secretly he enjoyed the human contact. He was an island, and everyone else were huddled in the continent that had banished him.

'Sometimes, the easiest way to make people happy,' She suggested, drawing her thumb over the back of my hand, 'is to make them tea.'

_Frangipani Soap. Perfume, old, from an ex-husband visiting from Paris. White ring around her finger, tan-line where _

_She once used to keep his promises. Small scars on the inside of her hands. Run away and join the circus. Run away and be an acrobat. Dream big, dream loud._

'Not coffee?' I frowned. When Mummy was upset, Mycroft made her coffee. She never drank tea after my father died. He went into a special section, under the Dead and Departed, but in the rare tomb entitled People Who Matter But Must Never Be Mentioned.

So where did I put John? Those Who Would Die But Don't Because I Died For Them?

John has a world. I have a palace, and he has a world.

.

No sugar, just the coffee. He smiled approvingly over the mug at me, slight crinkles growing around his eyes. There was a scar there, faded among the wrinkles that would have been otherwise ignored, but there nonetheless. The television screamed at us with meaningless drivel. People hurt each other for the sake of publicity, grinning broadly at each other as the scythe struck low.

'Why are you still here?' I asked. I didn't ask him then, in this place and this time, but I asked him anyways. In this room, I could change the events in my memory as I pleased. 'You could leave whenever you wanted to.'

'I never want to leave,' John laughed, shaking his head. 'You're my friend.'

There were words that we both never said. I never had the abilities, the tools to voice certain things.

John never had the time.

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

Another room, another place I wish I could change.

'You _machine_!' John howled at me, his face growing dark with rage and betrayal.

It hurt me more than I ever felt anything hurt. I had grown constellations for John in my heart. They collided into a gasping black hole, screaming up into my throat until my eyes smarted.

I had the words in my mind ready, but he was gone before I could say them. But I made him stay, made the door into a wall so that John's fists beat relentlessly against the hard brick.

'If I'm a machine,' I whispered, 'then why would I die for you?'

.

There was a tunnel from the room of Regrets to the Classroom. My lips were bleeding and my eyes felt like they were about to burst from their sockets. I remembered a burst of fireworks against my retina when the boy hit me. I had told him the truth, but obviously the truth was hardly something that earned rewards.

Her face was cast in shadow but I knew Her eyes were like silver light. 'They don't mean what they say,' She assured me softly, stressing every odd number of her syllables. Her shoes had little bows on them, all of them in various colours.

'They do,' I replied simply. 'They aren't wrong. Mummy's psychiatrist agrees.'

_Sociopath. Tendency towards antipathy. Too logical. Unnatural child._

_Monster. Machine._

I had devised a method of reading my reports and sealing them shut again without leaving even a single fingerprint on the shiny card. The teachers described me as intelligent, however disinterested in the fundamental aspects of life and its sciences, especially when applying these knowledges to interrelations with my peers. They used words that a child should not understand. Words that I knew by heart, and learned to understand.

She bit her lip once, pulling a chaffed part upwards. 'I don't believe in that,' She whispered agitatedly, passionately. Her hands tightened around mine. 'I don't believe you're a monster, Sherlock. I think you're brilliant, and that you can be very kind.'

I stared at Her incredulously. 'Kind?' I repeated. I had never shown any tendencies of the sort in Her Classroom.

'Kind,' She confirmed with a tone of finality. 'When Amy's pen was stolen, and everyone thought it was Tom. You proved that it was Henry all along. You saved someone, Sherlock. That's worth remembering.'

.

'Don't hero-worship me,' I reminded John, reading the newspaper without actually processing the information there. I knew the events already, having read the entire column while he was asleep. I knew his patterns by heart. They were imprinted on the inside of my retinas.

'And yet,' John retorted, raising an eyebrow, 'you worship me.' He would never have known this, but being a fragment of a room, he was allowed ownership of facts and figures I tried so desperately to hide from him.

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

I extended my hand towards him, my palm facing his face. He mirrored my motion exactly, his eyes locked upon me. We had been in the flat kitchen only minutes before, and yet now I was standing on the ledge, and John was an eternity of spaces away with the phone pressed against his face.

'Don't,' John pleaded in my ear, his voice drifting into my veins although his heart was hundreds of millions of milimetres away. 'Sherlock,' he pronounced.

The phone slipped from my fingertips. John shattered into a hundred pieces at my feet, his tears tasting of the snow and the rain. They were never his tears at all, but I am producing them nonetheless. At the final moment, I did not know what part of me was not filled with him, his smiles, his laughter, his sighs, the shadows he made on the floor, the sounds the floorboard made under his slippered feet.

I moved to the edge, spread my arms wide, and thought of flying.

_Safe landing. Rubber ball. Remember to hold your breath. Don't breathe. For God's sake, man, don't breathe._

John cried out.

And I fell.


	2. Sleep

He talked in his sleep when he was dreaming. When he had nightmares, however, he was silent, sometimes barely breathing. His right fist clenched and unclenched as his legs entangled in the covers. The streetlight filtered through his windows, forming harsh shapes on his body. His lips moved in the beginning of names.

_Get behind me._  
Gunfire rattled on the insides of the soldier's head.

.

The room of Monsters is five steps away from the room of Regrets.

'Sherlock, why is there a decapitated frog next to the cheese?' John asked mildly, sitting opposite me with his tea. His face was freshly shaved, his clothing almost presentable, and there was a nervous sort of indention to the right of his mouth. There was a spot of liquid next to his sleeve. The top pocket of his jacket was slightly open, revealing the discount coupon to the Thai restaurant.

_Perfume, freshly sprayed, expensive but strong. A small taster present. Christmas._

'Don't try too hard to impress her, or she'll notice,' I advised him, inspecting a particularly interesting article about a limb missing a corpse. It was often the other way around. Kidnapping serial killers, they proved so fascinating. 'And it's an experiment,' I added as an afterthought. 'Don't touch it.'

John regarded me with something that was neither admiration or dismay, perhaps closer to exasperation. He sipped his tea, shaking his head and murmuring something too incoherent for me to understand or to remember. Both were the same, in this room. 'Look, just remove it, alright?' John smiled wryly. 'For Mrs. Hudson's sake.'

Our breakfast - his, he ate, I watched my coffee cool and counted the minutes it took for a ring to form on the tablecloth - passed in silence. It often did, on the quiet days without any pressing case or surprise raid from Lestrade. The clock hands moved sternly into position, and with military promptness stood and straightened his shirt.

'Right,' he announced, 'I'm off.'

Staring at the tablecloth, I merely hummed in reply. At that time, my experiment took priority over John's relationship status, or his emotional place. Only, the sharp rapping urged me to look up. I obeyed. He lingered in the arch where the last line of vision between us would be absolutely eliminated, his eyes reaching towards me. His tongue traced his lower lip. 'Why don't you stop me?' he questioned calmly, patiently.

My ribs cracked, one by one.

_Blunt force. The handle of a fireaxe. Some post-mortem. Passion, anger, either or._

'I want to,' I mouthed.

His lips pulled upwards slowly, like a crack appearing on the great icy covering of a winter lake. 'I want you to,' he revealed, and left.

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

.

'Can't you _see_ what's happening here?' I roared at John, smashing the side of my palm down on the desk. Fury had never been so prominent in my veins, laced with thick frustration. There were many things that I could afford to lose, but John was not one of these things. I breathed on his admiration, on his trust, on his solid presence beside me to anchor me down. Moriarty wanted to steal even this from me, to make me as inhuman as he was.

'I know you're for real,' came the voice, soft and angry. Defiant that I have doubted him. Believing that I could trust him as he had always trusted me, that there was a place of equilibrium in our relationship. 'I know you're afraid,' he added. These were not his words, but now they were. 'I know you're afraid, Sherlock, but you shouldn't be. I'll protect you.'

I remembered the grim look in his eye as he had joined me after the incident with the cabbie, the stiffness in his shoulders. Every single time he pulled the trigger, it was not with a rush of emotion, or with anger, or even the scratching desire to injure, destroy, and completely crush a man's will to exist. It was a swift, terrible decision, and he lived and died with these decisions. John had barely known me then. What would he do for me now?

'Not this time,' I responded, shaking my head. 'This time it has to happen this way.'

John's lips thinned and whitened. 'You will kill me,' he warned. Sirens began to illuminate the side of his face, warning Lestrade's arrival. The events were out of joint, but they continued nonetheless. 'You will completely kill me. You know that, don't you, you prick?' Even the most obscene thing he said was dipped in warmth.

'John,' I pronounced.

He closed his eyes, drawing his hand over his face as though he would never allow me to see the emotions. I knew them well.

I did not know what parts of me were not filled with parts of him.

'Sherlock,' he whispered. 'Stop this. Just stop it. Don't be - ' a quick inhalation of air, sharp and painful and crude and awful - 'dead.'

.

The Classroom was the place to go, when in doubt.

She was wearing owls in her ears, long, golden owls with pointed beaks and hollow eyes that stared. A matching necklace hung around Her neck. Her nailpolish was chipped on Her forefinger and thumb. As She moved Her arm, the light revealed a little circular scab.

'What's wrong?' She inquired softly, carefully lilting her voice.

'Nothing,' I replied automatically, simply because there was very little that had altered from my usual existence.

She raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. 'Sherlock,' she sighed reproachfully, 'don't think I don't see. You used to smile at me. Now you barely look at me.'

I lowered my eyes, guilty for being exposed for performing behaviour that had earned me the distaste of my classmates. Guilt transformed into a quick moment of retaliation. 'How long have you been seeing Mycroft?' I demanded. I had seen their eyes meet quickly over my head. There had been colour in Her cheeks, and a quick bob of Mycroft's adam's apple.

Her eyes widened, but then Her shoulders relaxed as She closed Her eyes. 'Oh, Sherlock,' She said quietly. 'Sometimes you can love a person, and they can love you back, but you can never really be together.'

.

In the room of the Dead and Departed Mycroft's face was never closed with indifference, or cold contempt. He was caging his sorrow, forcing it into submission. He was transforming himself into something steely, dangerous, methodological and highly useful to the country. Nonetheless, Mycroft shut out his family and his brother, choosing the weaker way. He chose to run instead of pursue. He removed his vital organs and kept them in a jar above his reserved place in the room of People Who Matter But Must Never Be Mentioned, so that he might rejoin his emotions when he died.

'Human sentiment is irrelevant,' he whispered, his lip curling with sorrow.

.

For the first time in weeks, the lock to the door swung open, and the room of Good Things opened. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings, the ceiling painted to mirror a sky. That was the sky that shone over the very first spring morning that I could remember, when Mummy smiled and Mycroft smiled back at her with a resonance that reached his eyes.

'So who's the alien serial killer this time?' John asked, sitting to my right. His hair was mussed from unstable sleep, and his eyes were haunted by the reflection of old wars. The television screen flickered with false characters swathed in terrible makeup and crashing effects, explosions that did not quite sink well into the movement of shadows. These were the details. The plotline itself was impressive, and it was one of the few reasons that I allowed myself to watch the show. Another reason was simply that John found the dialogue amusing, and when John was amused there would be a section of peace in my middle.

'None of them,' I replied steadily. 'This time it's the humans to blame.'

John wrinkled his brow, shifting his gaze to me. A sweeping breeze ran through the room, rustling the newspaper clippings like leaves in a storm.

_Frangipani soap. Perfume, old, from an ex-husband visiting from Paris._

'How did you figure that out?' he demanded, the usual tone of amazement lacing his voice. He rubbed the back of his neck. There was a thin layer of stubble on his chin that had been allowed to grow after one of the long list of women had left him, yet again. Every time they left him, John would inform me with a strangely accusing tone in his voice, as though I were to blame for his relationship failures.

'I've watched this episode before,' I replied, smirking with self-satisfaction.

'Of course you have,' John laughed. He moved deeper into the couch, sliding his arms outwards on the back. Any closer and he could have touched me, but he did not. There were many motions we could have carried out, but did not. 'Do you ever sleep?' he asked mildly, narrowing his eyes.

I busied myself with the program and chose not to answer him. He knew the answer anyways. My routine was imprinted on the insides of his skull. 'Sometimes,' I murmured, 'I watch you sleep.'

John did not turn to look at the television, although he was meant to, and he turned away in the original memory but not in this room. In this room, Good Things were allowed to happen. 'Why don't you wake me up?' he pressed softly. He shifted closer, his fingertips brushing against my shoulder. This happened, in the world that really existed. I had not noticed this, focusing my attention on the finale to the television show so that I might not have to suffer the consequences of human contact.

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

'I wish I could,' I told him.

He smiled thinly, painfully. 'Now it's too late, isn't it?' he said bitterly. 'There's no more time for us.'

'There will be,' I whispered. I could have reached up to touch his hand, but I did not. 'Wait for me, John. Wait for me.'


	3. Tea

In the cupboard next to the room of Interesting Foods was the special area allocated to Those Who Care And Still Somehow Matter. For now, it smelt like scones and hot butter, and perhaps the faintest of whiffs of Oolong tea. John sipped a sample of it in a stained mug that had been mine for the past years, but I willingly let him use it - hold ownership to it, even, if he wished - for the thought that John's mouth would occasionally graze over the areas mine had. This was as far as I allowed my thoughts to stray. I knew well enough that attempts at relationships often ended in either the other party creating as large a separation as possible, or myself injuring them physically or emotionally. John, however, had stayed extraordinarily stubborn throughout my harsh outbursts and self-absorbed moments.

Through all of it, he had stayed.

The Woman had not. But that was inconsequential, as this was not her room. Hers belonged in the alleyway of the Dangerous But Brilliant, marked with a Maybe But Not Again. Never Again.

The window was half-open, letting in a soft breeze that smelt slightly of exhaust fumes and mostly of the freshly-fallen rain. It would be a wet summer, brought down from the storm riding on the coastline and pummeling these grey buildings into new shapes. The dishwasher hummed contentedly, fighting the marks of a recent experiment on the decay rate of pig's eyeballs.

'If I butter this scone,' John started, setting down his mug, 'would you eat it?' In this light, his eyes were marvelously transparent, reinstating his powers of observation. My talents were in the factors that people often missed, and likewise John's talents lay in noticing the obscene details in my behaviour. His talent was me.

I drew my phone out of my dressing-gown's pocket. No text from Lestrade to announce a new case, and yet, no irritating jab from Mycroft either. It was a neutral fact, and so I dismissed it by returning my phone to its original place. 'I have no need for a great amount of sustenance in the early hours -'

'It's half past ten, Sherlock,' John interrupted sternly. He split a scone into two, buttering its jagged surface regardless of my statement. With solid determination, he handed the pastry over to me. Our fingertips brushed for the briefest of breaths. Our eyes met quickly. This did happen, in the real memory. 'You must have felt something,' John continued, leaning back into his chair. He lowered his gaze to his fingertips, rubbing the thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully. 'I did. You can see it now,' he added, lowering his voice slightly, 'can't you?'

The scone broke into a thousand pieces in my mouth. 'I cannot imagine why I didn't,' I replied.

.

For some reason the Classroom was conjoined with the cupboard of Those Who Care And Still Somehow Matter, and this too, smelt of eaten scones and smeared butter. The tea was stronger, thicker, and laced with heavy honey and cinnamon. I knew these spices well from long afternoons spent dipping my fingers into the spices laid out in the shops. People had viewed me as a child with simplistic pleasures, only I was merely fulfilling my growing thirst for universal understanding. Why did spices exude different aromas? What spices were associated with what emotions?

_Vanilla, romance, sweet, chocolate, white, innocence, sex._

'Would you like to try some of my tea, Sherlock?' She asked with a bright smile. She had a shawl slipped over Her shoulders, but the dark tassels were not enough to hide the four identical, circular scabs that lay inside Her elbow. Her cheeks had grown sallow and pallid. The soft coral-shaded blush was not enough to hide this. 'It's delicious.'

'You're ill,' I stated quietly. My stomach clenched with fear, but my pulse stayed even. Even then, it was not within me to demonstrate emotions.

Her smile became less convincing, the light dimming slightly. 'You mustn't tell him,' She pleaded, Her fingertips brushing against mine. 'He mustn't know.'

.

John was very far away. He called through the locked doors and thick wooden hinges from the beautiful places I had hid him in. Nonetheless, this was a room I had avoided long enough, and She had brought me here through the bookcase in the Classroom. The door was padlocked, the code a secret even to myself. A few tries allowed me a victory, and I stepped into the room of Unchangeable Mishaps. There were papers strewn on the floor, fluttering like startled butterflies in the wind. He rarely ever raised his voice, but he did now.

'How could you not tell me?' he wept, driving his fist into the wall. The thin plaster broke under his knuckles. There was ash on his shoe. He had been smoking again. A small sliver of red ran down his neck. Did he cut himself shaving or was it purposeful? 'How could you know all along? Why did She tell you?'

I looked down at my hands, to where the various pages of my lengthy report had been torn so quickly they had left long cuts down to the heels of my palms. The pain was thin and weak. 'She told me nothing, Mycroft' I replied calmly, quietly. The tears had been spent into the crook of my pillow for things I could have done, various methods I could have saved her. Years had morphed those feelings, first into numbness, then into ice. 'I deduced it.'

'You and your bloody deductions,' he spat. 'You're an abomination. You have no idea what being human feels like, do you?'

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

Hypocrite. He was a hypocrite, carrying around his pain and throwing it at me. I stood quickly. 'Leave,' I ordered.

A slackening in the face, a movement in the hands.

_Guilt. Regret. Anxiety. Fear._

'Sherlock,' he whispered.

'_Leave!'_ I roared, the air throwing itself out of my lungs with a force I had never known.

.

The seam separating the room of Unchangeable Mishaps and the room of Monsters was splitting. Mycroft loomed huge in the shadows, the edge of his umbrella tapping the insides of the walls. He wormed his way into the darkest corners of my palace, eating his way out with sharpened teeth.

It had been ridiculously easy to smuggle the needles and the clear bottle into the room. A sixth former with such high-standing achievements was hardly questioned. The evidence was easy to clear. The fingerprints were nonexistent. The drug tests were easily predicted, as the 'random' allocations was not as random as the school claimed. I rolled up the sleeves of my uniform shirt, pulling the gloves up to wrists. The pain was minute, dulled. The pleasure, however, was immediate.

'I never thought it was true,' John murmured in my ear. He was misplaced. He did not belong here, but in memories where my clarity was non-existent, logic could evaporate as well.

I did not know what parts of me were not filled with parts of him.

'I never need this when I'm with you,' I inform him with a smirk.

_He does not need his cane when he is with me._

John's fingers felt like ice on the sides of my neck. He looked across the room, over my shoulder, at the stacked books on my desk. 'You needed it here?' he questioned, without a trace of judgment in his voice, as though he understood the torment I suffered from the ice inside in these years. If I was not chasing something, pushing my intellect, then it was silence in my head. My heart was no longer a relevant organ.

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

'I wish I knew you here,' I informed him matter-of-factly. I wish I had known him in all the moments of my life, in the empty moments in the Classroom where the other children pulled with their words at my deficiencies, in the hallways of the school where people took my intellect and disinterest, and created a mockery of me. They called me names I barely cared for, but when I looked up into the translucent eyes that had always watched me, _watched me_, I wished that events had unraveled differently.

But the haze was thick, and my tongue was loose and slurred, and my mouth tasted like blood.

'I will know you,' John promised with a smile.

I scrambled for him, but my hands only tangled with the duvets. Sweat broke out at my brow, but it didn't matter. I was climbing, climbing, and at the back of my skull Mycroft howled like a wounded beast the way that he would never allow himself to. He was ice, just as I was. 'Every second I spend without you is hell,' I whispered.

'Every second I spend without you,' John repeated, closing his eyes, 'I'm not even breathing.'

.

'You need to stop this,' Mycroft pronounced icily, tapping the tip of his umbrella against the inside of my leg. The needle was still embedded in my arm, the poison coursing delightedly through my veins.

_Anger. Sorrow. Products of loss. Pain. Arousal. Fear. Flight, or fight. Always flight, of sorts, from emotion._

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

_Is irrelevant._

_Is irrelevant._

Mycroft's lip curled in distaste at the smell and the state of the room, of the flat. Lestrade had called him, obviously. No one else would have. He was exceedingly unlikeable, and the distasteful personality grew as he aged. 'You're a disgrace, Sherlock,' he informed me coldly. Always a disgrace, always a disappointment. 'You should be employing your considerable talents in productive activities.'

_Hypocrite._

'Since when have you cared?' I laughed, tipping my head back. It was ridiculous, the whole affair, and yet in that moment I had offered no scathing words, no scorn. I had explained about my position as advisor to Lestrade, only to find out that Mycroft had found yet another roundabout way of keeping his eye on me. However, in this room, in this place of Monsters, my fight was my own. 'You betrayed me in the end,' I added quietly, pulling the syringe out of my veins. 'You caused all of this. You were the one who hurt John.'

Slowly, steadily, Mycroft dripped into the room. He filled it in with his harm, his staged indifference, his externalised pain and his words. He overtook all that was meant to be one thing, and charged it with another. He deserved as little space as possible. John owned the rest.

John owned it all, all of it, all of it.

The cocaine crashed as Mycroft charged a different syringe into my chest, charging blood back into my ears and jump-starting my heart. My lips were bleeding, although the reason behind the unfortunate development was a complete mystery to me. When drunk on my poisons, my mind could finally be silent, but with the rush of adrenalin the whirs and the cogs pulled me into focus.

.

I escaped the only way I knew how, by sharpening my attention on the room that was least destructive to me. The room of Good Things opened happily to me. John was stirring milk into my tea calmly, his back turned away from me. A rectangle of skin was exposed between his hair and the edge of his sweater.

'I don't want milk in my tea,' I announced regally, sliding into my place on the couch. This was where I had been sitting for hours, my hands pressed against my lips, too preoccupied with my thoughts to fully appreciate what John was doing.

_What would cinnamon be doing in a plate of human ash? Saliva, no saliva. Thought: who keeps urns in the kitchen? Must experiment with John and Mrs. Hudson's reactions to human ash. Hygienic? Probably not._

John stood in front of me, extending the mug patiently. 'Just trust me, will you?' he pressed tolerantly, the way he often did when I was ill and especially stubborn.

Illness never meant a change in mental state for me until the fever peaked, at which point the disturbance was merely temporary and I would soon recover. I ignored him.

'Sherlock,' John sighed, almost paternalistic. 'Be less of a git, will you? I'm demonstrating human compassion for your poor stomach. You don't want ulcers.' The mug swooped closer. The edge was chipped. He had dropped it once or twice before, perhaps in the shocking discovery of something I had forgotten to clear away in the sink, or in a rush of fatigue. In fact, he was so attached to this mug that he rarely parted with it, but he was offering it to me.

_Sometimes, the easiest way to make people happy is to make them tea._

A soft wind whispered through the open windows I did not remember opening.

_Frangipani soap._

I extended my hand to receive his gift, a smiling slowly. 'Of course,' I said softly. 'I must always listen to my doctor.'

John nodded stiffly in confirmation and returned to pour himself a cup of tea. He was never one to bask in congratulations or praise, never one to be easily fooled. He was irreplaceable, absolutely precious.

'I can't afford to lose you,' I informed the back of his head. 'That's why I had to do it.' These explanations would never be voiced. He would never know, but here and now I was allowed to bend the rules for some peace of mind.

'Have you ever considered,' John replied, voice steady, 'that I can't afford to lose you, either?'

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

Mycroft's umbrella tapped on the door disapprovingly. His presence ate its way over the palace, gnawing at the rooms he had no right to touch. Soon his shadow would take John away from me, and all battles would be lost.


	4. Spiral

The spiral of Deductions Past built itself in a Davinci maze, a circular arrangement of rooms giving way to an inner layer, and and inner layer, and finally the Most Imporant One sat in the centre. This was a position that was easily allocated to any of the condiments of any room. Importance was something that often changed according to the events in the material world outside of the Palace, and according to whether or not a detail repeated itself and needed the most attention. However, when there was no practical use or sensible need, the same event found its way back to the throne, to the Most Important One.

'Afghanistan or Iraq?' I whispered as I slipped in through the door, having missed the play of details. The repetition was hardly necessary. My mind had memorised the unnamed stranger's existence exquisitely.

The soldier's forehead crinkled slowly. There was a scar there almost invisible to normal light, but visible under the right conditions and perspective, curved slightly like the ghost of a waning moon.

_Upper right incisor. Wide jaw. Male, possibly Caucasian. Weathering and colour suggest at least two decades of exposure. A fighter even in schooling years. Hot-blooded? No. Protecting someone? A figure of honour, integrity?_

These were deductions I had made in silence, keeping them to myself as personal judgment of his character and his potential use to me. They were thoughts I had formed in a time when I had not yet known that he was essential, and that in his absence it was almost impossible to control logical trains of thought.

_Every second I spend without you - _

_Human sentiment is irrelevant._

.

I knew the pathways well, but sometimes sinkholes grew in places that I had not placed proper trapdoors. This particular one drained through a long tunnel until it threw me into the echoing halls of If Only. There were no memories here; wishes and dreams ricocheted off stiffly stacked bars that smelt like black paint and freshly wrapped orange peels. Golden light danced on unforgiving tar, making the shapes in the semi-dark so much greater than they truly were.

_Shadow puppets. Illusions. Love: the promise of it._

'Take my hand!' I commanded, streams of thought pulling through the heavy adrenalin.

His fingertips were not as rough as the heels of his palms, which were scattered with the slightest of bumps. Something in me recollected sight of the feature in full light, that the skin in some areas were not evenly coloured.

_Burns. Second-degree. Voluntary contact. Immediate treatment. How many bombs have you touched? Hundreds? Thousands? How many fires have you tried to put out?_

His teeth were gritted more for habit than in the effort of the run. John had raced through many an alley before, at times overtaking my pace although I was at an anatomical advantage. This was the resonance of the brutality of a soldier's irreversible road, and the impossible tragedy of running although there was no promised finish line. His breath was rhythmical, almost precise enough to use as a metronome.

'Now people will definitely talk,' he noted. There was desperation under his humour, a strain below the smile and the slight chuckle. John risked everything to fall with me, which was precisely why the final topple was something I had to prevent him from following.

Even if the soldier dreamed of gunfire, his afflictions would be better than a dreamless, eternal sleep.

We were never running at all but standing quite calmly in the soft light, alone. John's smile quivered too much. 'You should have understood while you had the chance,' he scolded playfully. His breath formed rings on the cold air. A Davinci spiral of rooms.

_The Most Imporant One._

I shook my head. 'I don't know what the chance was,' I protested, but I was pulling him into the way of a bus and it was too late.

.

The Woman looked up at me, the smile beginning to fade. Mycroft seemed alarmed, but pleased. Of course he was pleased. 'Caring is not an advantage', his eyes reminded me. The words change. The idea never does. He is locked in his icy cage and he will never escape.

'This is your heart,' I sneered, finger resting above her pulse. Her lifeline. Her very life.

_Her words. Not mine._

'And you should never let it rule your head.'

Mycroft tapped his hand on the table impatiently. 'Hypocrite,' he remarked casually, although he said nothing then, when this actually happened, when I rectified my stupid mistake by saving England a fortune in Ms Adler's silly little requests.

_Hypocrite.  
Hypocrite._

.

I was far from the better-tread areas, entering into the room of That Which Arouses Inexplicable Amounts Of Dangerous Emotion. There was a quiet, syncopated beeping filling the sound of tired silence and muffled drips. A television rolled through an attempt at relaxing scenery, achieving nothing more than a set of horrendously photoshopped pictures of flowers that were far too saturated in colour. On the other side, She sat folded in blankets, like a faded photocopy of Herself, with Her head wrapped with a thick red scarf to replace the colour of her curls.

Even at the time, I had ensured that I entered the situation with an acceptable amount of background research, and I knew that this type of cancer was one that was not easily cured. That was as much of the perplexing terminology as I could allow. It was too dangerous to know how She would decompose, how the blood cells would turn against each other.

She beckoned for me to approach, so I did. There was a chair that was too low for me to view her adequately, so I clambered onto her bed. Her hands trembled slightly when they covered mine, and they were very cold.

_Below room temperature. Death. Decay. Morgues. Bodies floating in the Thames._

My heart hammered in my chest, my body remembering the moments I had scurried past inquisitive adult eyes, my mind remembering the possible price I would pay for this. 'The other teachers told me to visit you,' I explained calmly. 'I thought it was a good idea, so I came.' In a child's perspective, the journey had been endless, but upon repeated inspection, I found that it had barely been a breath away.

Even with the emptiness under Her eyes, She laughed. 'Mycroft will be so worried,' She warned with a faded voice and a brilliant heart.

_Violin discarded in the wrong place, hiding the map. Circled bus stations with red pen. Red for urgent. For come now. Come soon._

'Good,' I said out loud. 'He should be.'

In the next few hours, I pretended to fall asleep, timing the rising and falling of my ribcage precisely. Mycroft was good at observation, but Her presence aided his distracted state. He entered awkwardly, holding the umbrella She'd given him in front of his body like a profane offering, cigarette ash clinging to the tip of his leather shoe.

'I thought I might as well return this,' he explained.

Her hands threaded through my hair, the iciness of Her fingers warmed by the feverish temples of a child braving through mid-Autumn weather. On retrospect, that may have been the beginning of my incurable disinterest in my own wellbeing for the sake of various missions. 'Oh, it's alright,' She replied softly, the edges of disease blurred with something thick and beautiful, and yet entirely intangible. 'Keep it. I won't need it anymore,' She added, the last syllable dipping low.

.

With the lights cut off by strips of roofing, and a splash of galaxies stretched across what was visible of the sky, it was like a contained planetarium. A sliver of the human interest, captured in nature itself.

_Cultures believe certain elements in the human body are affected through planets and stars. Studies have shown suggestive evidence. Research inconclusive. Must investigate. John participate? Too soon. Lipstick on ear. Swiftly advancing relationship, woman in control. Sarah? Was it? Irrelevant._

'Beautiful,' I noted, 'isn't it?'

I could almost hear his confusion, the turning of his head, the stretching of his tendons. Of course he would be confused, we were walking down an alleyway having a conversation about stars. It was almost romantic - and that would never do, not then, not ever. I had been taught that lesson a long time ago. They taught me well, the women. Ms Adler, and Her.

John lifted his eyebrows. 'I thought you didn't care about-'

'Doesn't mean I can't appreciate it,' I retorted smoothly. Because smoothly was all I could produce on the surface. Why would I impress him? He was not exactly clever or talented. Over and over again I attempted to bring out the human in me, to compress myself into something which was acceptable, while I was still Not Good. Bit Not Good, Yeah.

John lowered his head, digging his hands further into his pockets.

_Clenching and unclenching of fists. Stress. Discomfort. No limp. No unhappiness. Happiness and discomfort equate lust, perhaps, love, perhaps. Lust? Lust?_

.

The corner of John's mouth twitched as he looked round the corner of the street. This part is not real, just a refraction of what I wanted, wrapped in an insignificant memory I somehow forgot to delete, but here it is. 'Don't be an idiot,' he grinned.

'I am not,' I replied quickly. Simply. But that was not how things were. Not anymore. Not since.

_Absence makes the heart grow fonder._

'So maybe it's time,' John added, reading my mind, but he can't in real life, never could. It was infuriating, and now I just miss it.

_Blunt force. The handle of a fireaxe. Some post-mortem. Passion, anger, either or._

'It is,' I confirmed. 'And I don't know what you will do.'

John smiled at me. We were no longer walking, no longer chasing children's tales or monsters in the dark. The door waited me, breaths away, the letters glistening in the rain. 'So come upstairs,' he ordered.

_I'm not dead. Let's have dinner._

'And,' he added, fumbling in his pockets for the keys, 'I'll stay.' But the rain grew heavy and John did not know I was watching, I was an awkward teenager with a hood drawn over his head, silent headphones in my ears, and he opened the door to the flat and went in. Because he could not leave. Because he would not.

_This is your heart._

And you cannot forcibly remove a vital organ from your ribcage.

.

'You look sad sometimes,' the girl, Molly Hooper, notes in a low voice, 'when you think he's not looking.' There is a slight difference between false empathy and actual sympathy. Hers was the latter.

Unbidden, my eyes catapulted my gaze onto him as he moved about silently, captured in thought. He was trying to save me, my doctor, even when his own life was clearly on the line, yet this was not the first time John Watson had laid his mortality on the table.

For the first time in years, I understood Her words, Her terrible, terrible words. The space that existed between us slammed us together with brutal force.

_Sometimes you can love a person, and they can love you back, but you can never really be together._

That was not the first time the emotion had struck me hard.

_Solar plexus. Breathe. For God's sake, man, breathe._

It was, however, the first time the words themselves illuminated in dark capital letters in the inside of my forehead, pushing all coherent thought elsewhere for later inspection. In the sliver of epiphany, only one thing mattered, and that was John.

_His smiles, his laughter, his sighs, the shadows he made on the floor, the sounds the floorboard made under his slippered feet._

Mycroft's voice drowned. The words that remained retained their original importance.

_Human sentiment is._


End file.
